Cobb

By: Al Stump

Narrated by: Ian Esmo

As a boy in the 1890s he went looking for thrills in a rural Georgia that still burned with humiliation from the Civil War. As an old man in the 1960s he dared death, picked fights, refused to take his medicine, and drove off all his friends and admirers. He went to his deathbed alone, clutching a loaded pistol and a bag containing millions of dollars worth of cash and securities.
During the years in between, he became, according to Al Stump, "the most shrewd, inventive, lurid, detested, mysterious, and superb of all baseball players." He was Ty Cobb.
In Cobb, Stump tells how he was given a fascinating window into the Georgia Peach's life and times when the dying Cobb hired him in 1960 to ghostwrite his autobiography.©1994 by Al Stump (P)1997 by Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Stump has resurrected Cobb in all his terrifying malevolence...Spellbinding." (The Washington Post)
"Cobb is a big, raw, rought-cut diamond of a book and the most powerful baseball biography I have read." (Roger Kahn, author of The Summer Boys)

The Georgian dialect by the performer was hard to listen to.

The stories were good but the statistics were a little overdone. I understand his dominance but it was a little drawn out. Stump took some liberties with his racism reputation. He was a huge advocate for Jackie in 1947.

Cobb's Third Side

As a life-long baseball fan I have always been aware of Ty Cobb's various record accomplishments and his notorious cruelty and rascism. However until I heard Cobb I only had fourth or fifth hand anecdotes and tall tales. Well... many of them turned out to be true and Cobb a much more complex man than I imagined. There is plenty of pure baseball here to keep the hard core fan attentive and also more than enough of Cobb's tragic life story and objective, well-informed opinion by author Al Stump to fill up the 14 hours of the reading. The narraration of this books makes it quite an enjoyable listen and I couldn't wait to hear the each installment.

Excellent listen, great baseball history.

if you like baseball history, this is a great listen. The impact that Ty Cobb had on the game makes this story very interesting.

Baseball Plus

This fine biography would obviously be a must-listen for any baseball fan. It's a story packed with incident, controversy and a flavor of baseball's past that is brought to life so fully that it seems as contemporary as Bonds and Pedro.

My only question is: Would a non-fan be interested? I think quite possibly not, although Ty Cobb was such a head-case that this is clearly not your average sports biography. It is also part history, part psychology and part simply evidence of thorough research.

Think you know Ty Cobb?

I did too. I didn't. Nor did I really have a flavor for the beginnings of Major League Baseball. Al Stump's book not only gives a balanced look at Cobb but it also details other interesting aspects of early baseball, from equipment and style to greedy owners (like today). Any baseball fan should read this.